The QC, Vol. 81, No. 19 • March 19, 1995

              WHITTIER
COLLEGE
^^^V ^—^ March 9,1995
Quaker Campus
April Lake/QC Photo Editor
▲ SPORTS
Ronn Mann pitched
against Cal Lutheran last
Saturday. The Poets lost
4-3. Read about their
game on the back page.
P9 12
CAM
w*
► Back by Popular
Demand
Learn more about Camille Wilson who recently
returned from New York,
where she had an internship with the United Nations' High Commissioner
for Refugees.
pg 6
COLLEGE
M
► Window Opens
Find out about the
Spring semester's first
Theatre Arts production,
Blue Window, by Craig
Lucas.
pg8
► Watch Where
You Post That:.:;
Thing!
A d on
the entrance doors to the
O will be Juken down.
The posting of flyers on
glass or painted surfaces is prohibited.
The Voice Of The Campus Since 1914
ADMINISTRATION
Saturday Finals Shorten Senior Week
by JEN SANCHEZ-SALAZAR
QC News Editor
For at least the next two years,
Whittier students will not be able
to celebrate the end of the school
year until the Monday before graduation.
The current finals schedule,
decided upon in October of 1993,
deviates from the schedules of
past years in two ways. The most
apparent change is that finals for
the next two Spring semesters will
span a weekend- (Thursday
through Monday, with no finals
on Sunday) rather than four weekdays (Tuesday through Friday).
Secondly, the finals for large-
enrollment courses and those having large percentages of seniors
take their finals early in the week,
as opposed to the random assignment of exam times that has been
the policy in the past.
According to Vice President
for Academic Affairs Lisa Rossbacher, the current schedule for
Spring finals, which will be in
effect for this year and next year,
shortens senior week while still
allowing enough time to process
seniors' grades and calculate honors before graduation.
There are several reasons for
shifting the academic calendar to
incorporate a five-day break between January Interim and Spring
semester and make finals last from
Thursday to Monday, according
to Rossbacher.
Said Rossbacher, "the real focus (when setting the calendar)
was on minimizing the time between finals and commencement."
In addition to responding to
"concerns student have expressed
about wanting to start their summer earlier, one reason for the
shortened senior week was "the
historical issue with problems in
the residence halls and accidents
on campus," said Rossbacher.
Director of Residential Life
David Leonard noted, "Whenever there's down time between
classes and after finals, there's
time to have some fun and perhaps get into some trouble. I had
asked that we shorten the time
after finals without inconveniencing the faculty or administration."
The academic calendar is reevaluated every other year and
two years are scheduled at a time.
The current schedule, which places the start of Spring semester five
days after the end of January term
and has finals lasting from Thursday through Monday, will be in
effect through next year.
The academic calendar is created through the cooperation of
Rossbacher and the associate academic deans, the registrar, and the
Educational Policies Committee,
which consists of student as well
as faculty members. The proposed calendar is then sent to the
Faculty Executive Council, which
is the body of faculty elected by
the faculty as a whole to represent
them. Finally, the calendar is reviewed and is subject to the approval of the president and the
vice presidents and deans.
In addition to having the same
number of instruction days per
semester (64) and scheduling
around holiday breaks, the parties
involved in creating the calendar
had to take into consideration (1)
preserving four days of finals instead of compressing them into
three; (2) minimizing the time
between the last final and commencement; and (3) keeping commencement on the Friday before
Memorial Day while allowing
enough time to process seniors'
grades and calculate honors.
According to Registrar Gerald Adams, the Saturday finals
are needed in order to complete
seniors' grades before graduation.
The registrar's office must have
enough time to calculate honors
and send them to the printer for
the commencement.
Adams noted, "There are not
too many insitutions that actually
confer the degree at commence
ment. It's a long-standing tradition at Whittier. The people who
walk during the ceremony are real
graduates."
Although the current schedule shortens the time available for
faculty to calculate seniors'
grades, "the registrar indicated it's
possible," said Rossbacher.
"We've cut it as close as we can,"
Adams said that the decision
to have finals on Saturday but not
Sunday was not based on religious concerns. "If I had needed
five days for finals I would've
taken Sunday too," said Adams.
Rossbacher noted that none of
the faculty members or students
involved in devising the calendar
raised concerns about having finals on the Jewish sabbath, but
that any concerned students are
encouraged to ask their professors to make accommodations."
As to whether the new schedule will work, Rossbacher note(d,
"if it's a disaster, we can change it
after two years."
ADMISSIONS
Admissions Revamps Recruitment Strategies
by JEFF HEYNEN
QC Staff Wrjtter
Adapting to the recent growth
in Whittier's student population,
the Office of Admissions has reinvented one technique, popularly called "road shows," for recruiting prospective students.
Initially designed six years ago
by President James Ash and
former Vice President for Enrollment and Student Life Kathryn
Forte, the road shows were intended to increase student awareness of Whittier College and to
provide a forum in which students
and parents could get to know this
small, liberal-arts college, according to Urmi Kar, associate director of admissions.
Dean of Enrollment Tom Enders stated that the goal of these
early shows was to "get Whittier
out there as a viable option."
Kar noted that the success of
the enrollment initiative, which
was designed to increase the size
ofthe College's student body, has
depended at least in part on the
road shows.
According to Enders, for all
intents and purposes the shows
were successful. "The road shows
were brilliant for where Whittier
College was six years ago," said
Enders.
However, now that the plan to
increase the size of the student*
population is ahead of schedule
by two years, the importance of
these road shows has declined
somewhat, said Enders.
The Admissions Office is reevaluating the shows and adjusting them accordingly to compensate for the fact that Whittier is
running at full capacity. Because
the time and cost factors involved
with the road shows are so great,
"we are trying to ween ourselves
off the dependency," Enders added.
Because of this, "we are definitely using road shows far less
than we did." For example, in the
Spring of 1990, representatives
from the college went to 12 different events; this Spring, however,
only two events are planned.
One reason for the cutback in
the number of traveling programs
is the fact that they are costly for
the school and time-consuming
for both the faculty and students
involved, for both must be off
campus for extended periods of
time.
QC File Photo
Dean of Enrollment Tom
Enders
The adjustments being considered are to make the shows on
a smaller scale; to contact a decreased number of students in the
area of choice and to have them
work in smaller discussion groups
with the students and faculty that
are representing the school.
This downsizing is an attempt
to answer Enders' question, "How
do you make a road show Whitti-
er-like?"
In past years, the 10-15 road
show participants were swamped
at each show by the arrival of 350-
400 prospective students at a
show, making the program seem
as if it were advertising "a major
research institution," said Enders.
But now that "we have more
room to breathe," as far as desired
applications go, "we need to find
less resource-intensive ways" (of
attracting students), said Enders.
Seattle has been chosen as the
guinea pig for this new program
from the list. If the Seattle shows
are successful, they will also be
utilized in other popular cities such
as Phoenix and Denver.
Involved in a road show are
speeches by Enders and President
Ash on the college experience
and the entire admissions procedure; a video spotlighting Whittier College and its physical, philosophical, and moral aspects; and a
collection of small groups of students and faculty who discuss with
students the Liberal Education
Program, the Whittier Scholars,
Program, the Faculty Masters Program, student financing, college
and co-curricular life and high
school honors weekend. , v
Of course, the immediate goal
of the shows is to get students
interested in the school, yet they
Please see SHOW pg. 5
ISSUE 19* VOLUME 81